Vital Spirit – Still as the Night, Cold as the Wind (Review)

This is the debut album from Canadian black metallers Vital Spirit.

Featuring members of Seer and Wormwitch, Still as the Night, Cold as the Wind contains 36 minutes of folk-enhanced black metal.

The music is a combination of raw blackened violence and textured introspective folk and psychedelia. Melody is an important part of the band’s sound, and this is used to great effect; the combination of lethal blackened melodies and folkier, uplifting ones is compelling.

Enriched by the presence of cello and elements of neofolk, the music has an American West cinematic quality to it, especially so when it’s not raging with serrated black metal fury. When it is focusing on the blackened side of the music, these themes are brought forward primarily in the melodies used. Saccharine Sky dispenses with the black metal entirety, presenting an affecting neofolk piece that works remarkably well in the context of the album as a whole.

Still as the Night, Cold as the Wind is a triumph of modern black metal meeting frontier Americana neofolk, with both learning and benefiting from the other.

Very highly recommended.